His parents, David Udall and Eliza King, had immigrated to the United States from England earlier in the year.

Immediately after moving his family there, Udall purchased lands and directed improvements geared toward creating a larger Mormon settlement of the area.

[4][5] Prosecutors remained determined to make an example of Udall, and in 1885, he was indicted and convicted on perjury charges, related to a sworn statement he made about the land claim of a fellow Mormon.

He spent three months in a Federal Prison in Detroit, Michigan, before receiving a full and unconditional pardon by President Grover Cleveland on December 12, 1885.

[9] In 1903, he discreetly married the former Mary Ann Linton, widow of John Hamilton Morgan (1842–1894), who had been a representative to the Utah Territorial Legislature.

After Ben Daniels, a federal marshal, served Udall and the others, they went to Prescott and paid their fines of $100, and then went back home.

David Udall's surviving children included two state supreme court justices and a mayor of Phoenix.